Historic Iris Beds. 9.2.14

Historic - mostly - Iris Beds.  9.1.14

Recovering Iris Plants.  9.1.14

Recovering Iris Plants.  9.1.14

 This is the state of the historic iris beds.  Historic irises, not historic beds.  They have nice growth, coming into fall.  I have sprayed with neem oil weekly.  The neem does not damage the leaves.  I don't know if it helps.  Fungus spot remains on the older leaves.  Expected - fungicide does not heal old spots, it prevents new ones.  I don't mind a few, expected in an organic garden.

Established vs. New Iris Plant.  Honorabile.  9.1.14

I thought I would lose Owyhee Desert - not historic - and Gay Geisha - historic.  Both are growing.  I doubt bloom next year.  Gracchus took a big hit too, and is growing again.  All 3 of these got replacement soil earlier this year, not enriched or amended.

Flavescens is poking along.  This may not be a good variety for this area.  I bought a replacement but the  original regrew.  The replacement is smaller than the original.

Alcazar is growing again.   It's almost as big as it was last year.  I thought it might be near-dead.  I suspect it will need at least another year to get viorous growth.  Assuming the plant disease issues are not a problem.  These also got new, unamended, unenriched, replacement soil.  The same for Shannopen, not shown.  That one, formerly big stout fans, reduced to nothing, but a tiny shoot grew so I kept it.

The final photo shows the difference between 1st year and 2nd year growth, for spring planted rhizomes.  This is sold as Honorabile but may be Sans Souci.  I bought a replacement because the growth last year was so minimal.  Despite the fungal issues with other plants, the overwintered cluster has much bigger leaves and better growth, compared to the rhizome I planted this Spring.  I think this indicates the Spring planted rhizomes, even if they might bloom the first year, are more stressed and take longer to establish, compared to summer - dormant -rhizomes.  This seems more true for the ones that are allowed to bloom the first year - makes sense, but the point of the Spring planting is to get same-year flowers.

New tags for all.  These are copper, which is embossed with ball point pen.  The steel markers with laundry marker faded too fast and will be reused elsewhere.